Well they can't very well label both HD7000 series parts and HD 8000 parts as HD 8000 parts now can they? Unless they break their scheme or add a moniker like "X" or "GT" or something we wouldn't be able to tell them apart very well, and neither would the OEM system builders. So they'll have to either use a stupid annoying and confusing naming scheme (thanks for showing them that trick nVidia), or else they will have to jump forward to the HD 9000 series - which I think most of us would prefer they would. I don't even look at nVidia cards anymore because their naming schemes got way too confusing. I don't even know what TI stands for and at this point I could really give a crap. They're bent on making money, not providing quality goods for their consumer. I understand that a business exists to capitalize off the good hard work of it's underlings - but these naming schemes could hardly be classified as creative genius. It's idiotic.Reply

I wonder what AMD will do with the retail naming scheme. So many spots have been filled up that it would be hard to work around the current names. I guess HD 8980 would work for the top single card. Then for the performance cards you would have HD 8850 and HD 8880, and eventually HD 8890. It is good AMD kept HD 8770 for the retail market. Once the HD 4770 came out, *770 became the coolest card to buy for gamers that wanted to go out on a modest budget. Reply

Of course. Don't you want a fancy new HD 8000 series card? You will see a massive improvement of 1 frame rate better due to new drivers and it will make such a big difference in games, despite the fact that you are already playing your original CS first person shooter game at over 300FPS!Reply

Lol I've literally seen this a quite a few times already. A lot of people buying a 1 generation higher card because they think it's way better and they're only playing CS at well over playable framerate already. This rebadge thing really does the trick apparently. Luckily this is OEM onlyReply

Yet, you'd have to be a bit simple in the head if you wanted to upgrade graphics card when your current card is more than enough for the only game you play, UNLESS power usage will be significantly lower.Reply

I have to admit that I am guitly of Unneeded Upgrade Syndrome (or UUS for the psychiatrists in the room), although I usually skip a generation. It really depends on the game. Bought a 470 GTX for BFBC2/BF3, upgraded to a 670 GTX for Borderlands 2/Planetside 2. The 470 still gets only a small amount of FPS lower then the 670 on med-high graphics settings.

Well it's easy to want the latest and greatest but the truth is that newer hardware drivers break older software. They can't optimize every new driver for every old game so at some point you need old hardware to play old favorites. As such, today we are far from the early days when games like pong were popular, and older games are decent enough now to have some retro/flashback replay value. For example, StarCraft is a game that rings a bell in my mind. It was just so addictive.Reply

"AMD to their credit has kept their retail desktop lineup consistent in naming and features, but with the OEM lineup this has gone completely out the window."

I know, it's not the actual lineup, but I usually looked at the OEM cards and saw model numbers that actually fit with their GPUs and thus with the rest of the series in question. Bringing back the THREE GENERATION OLD 5450 is ludicrous in the extreme. Simplifying and unifying a product stack is one thing, but at least when NVIDIA kept resurrecting the G80, it was a decent card (and it would murder the 5450/8350 - hell, even the 8400 tears the 8350 a new one, but would be destroyed by any decent A-series APU).

Fingers crossed that the actual 8000 series is going to be more interesting than this, but at least it's not all bad - Oland is a new chip, and may even be what we see in future APUs as, besides the new architecture and whatever clock speeds they decide upon, it's pretty much the 7660D in a mirror.Reply

Beyond the obvious shame involved with such a blatant rebrand of an entire product line, this "OEM-only" rebrand is bad news for anyone hoping for new SKUs based on a new ASIC anytime soon from AMD. If AMD was planning to release a new SKU in the same timeframe this OEM line exists, they probably could've convinced their OEMS to just wait for that new SKU that would obviously bring a new Series designation.

The main concerns here are that AMD is rebranding high-end parts as high-end, in the past they've (and Nvidia too) generally only been guilty for rebranding lower-end mainstream parts. In the past some of these OEM parts have made it to market as the rebranded model, I fully expect the same rebrands to hit the channel despite AMD's claim this is an "OEM-only" move. What's good for OEMs is good for AIB channel partners....

Maybe if Nvidia already launched a new series, this might make more sense, but from all expectations Nvidia's next series would've consisted of GK110 + refreshes of GK104 to go up against AMD's Sea Island. With this rebrand, who knows when we get Sea Islands and Nvidia's expected reaction.Reply

Given it's a top-to-bottom rebrand of their entire desktop stack with literally no change in specs or performance, yeah it's probably the worst single event ever.

Nvidia caught a lot of crap for their G92 rebranding but the G92 rebrand at least came with some improvements along with a gradual depreciation in terms of product/performance placement to fall in line with new high-end parts.Reply

AMD showed nothing, I say NOTHING, about releasing updated Southern Island cards. The mobile 8000 series is even showing worse specs than AMD shows on their site for 7000M series. AMD's roadmap only show Sea Islands and Solar System. So is this real or a stupid prank from a supposed journalist? I never saw these charts from CES, so where did they come from?Reply